web rings

Document an original microcontroller project and join a PIC webring, or AVR webring. 20 June 2006

audio electronics

Is there some other wiki for people to talk about audio electronics?
Or is this Open Circuits the best wiki for talking about things like
"Analog Devices AN-221: The Alexander current-feedback audio power amplifier" by Mark Alexander
?

I think I would prefer to offload all the audio electronics controversies to some other wiki
(but which one?).
Still, it would be nice to have some "tips for high-power electronics" here.
I imagine that tips page would list the various quirks of high-power MOSFETs, BJTs, TRIACs, and IGBTs,
and (given a particular motor or speaker or other load)
how to select one over the others,
and various ways of working around those quirks.
--65.70.89.241 07:17, 10 August 2006 (PDT)

I just joined Open Circuits. I have been servicing and designing audio equipment for several years (Recording consoles a specialty) I hope you will have a section for audio electronics. I also work with video projection systems and theatrical lighting (stage struck at an early age) I play electric rock-blues guitar, so I also am interested in tube guitar amps (Marshall and Boogie). And there is a big difference in what a guitar player thinks an amp should do, and what a recording engineer wants an amp for. I think these are valid points for discussion.
I've also got an interest in power supplies (my experience is mostly with linear, but I've started learning about switching designs). In fact that brings me to my question, I have some regulator designs based on the 723 that I'd like to share. How do I go about doing that? I built a replacement for a console /- 18V @6A supply when I couldn't find the original regulator devices. I used 723s with external series pass devices. The unit has been working for close to 10 years now, so I think the design is worth sharing. Is anyone interested?

I also research discrete op amps like the Jensen 990. I've been working (on and off for years) on a clone of that using more modern, easily available parts and devices. Anyone else?
Finally, in response to the first entry in this section, I too read that application note in Analog Devices Audio/Video Reference Manual. My copy is dated 1992. I've repaired a lot of amplifiers, but haven't built any. If anyone else is hip to this amp I'd like to hear about it. It is a very unique design. I also like the A75 amp design from Nelson Pass and Norman Thagard, and the Leach Amp by Marshall Leach. The last two are pretty normal as far as design goes, not as adventurous as the Alexander with its current-feedback approach.
Aloha, RAF--66.8.194.185 14:04, 18 May 2007 (PDT)

The colors are better in the other skins, but the navigation is worse.
How about a new skin that is like the default when it comes to navigation, but uses the normal wiki colors? // Cj 06:45, 4 October 2008 (PDT)

inviting people from other forums to open circuits

Lots of people talk about circuits for LED lighting at
http://candlepowerforums.com/
.
Perhaps we can talk some of them into contributing here -- perhaps using a page or two of Open Circuits as a FAQ for LEDs and drive circuits.

tool lists

Should we have an entire page on "tools", and mention it on the main page?
That risks listing *every* tool anyone has ever heard about,
like the page at
http://massmind.org/techref/tools.htm
.
Yes, I'm responsible for uglier bits on that page;
I think the wide variety of oscilloscopes are particularly confusing.
How could we cut through the confusion?

I see the "techniques" page already has a list of software tools.
Perhaps it would be nifty to have a short list of all the tools necessary for each technique?
Then a beginner would have a better idea of what tools he really needs to get (rather than looking at a huge list of every tool, and wondering for each one, "Am I going to regret buying it when I see it gathering dust? Or am I going to regret not buying it when I need it during a midnight debug session?").

Requests For Help

sample component

current surge and battery life

Hi,

currently my board is using a 3V battery, in every 40msec it will turn on its RF to communicate with the base station. I face a problem here is that my battery life is badly affected. Turning on the RF with cause a current surge.

Will this surge affect my battery life? If I use a supercapacitor does it helps?

rocket electronics

Is there another wiki that talks about rocket electronics?
Or is this Open Circuits the best place to talk about
ground support electronics
(such as Launch Controllers)
and
onboard electronics
(such as one
flight computer
or another
flight computer
)?
--DavidCary 14:21, 15 July 2007 (PDT)

Minimig

I have created pages about the Minimig project which is running an Amiga 500 in a Xilinx FPGA. It's rather a work in progress, than a static documentation. I hope nobody minds. Freqmax 18:35, 27 July 2007 (PDT)

I deleted a whole bunch of links that had been placed at the top of this page, probably by the same AH that did it to my page. I think the best solution would be to make it so no edits are possible without being logged in. Then there will be a record of who does this kind of thing. Then they can be banned from the site. I don't think that defeats the purpose of an open wiki environment, it simply means you have to register to contribute.

I agree. Annoying. I'm starting to "semi-protect" most pages so they can only be edited by logged-in users. I'm leaving a couple of pages wide open as a honeypot and/or test pages, so I can make tests and ban spammers without touching good pages. I think the $wgSpamRegex and/or ReCAPTCHA would be a better way to deal with spam. But my attempt to set them up isn't working yet. Sorry. --DavidCary 10:28, 3 January 2008 (PST)

tech-assist

A post I left at the Schmartboard mailing list.

Last week I posted to the Schmartboard mailing list asking about more interface types for their system.
I made reference to sites like this and pleaded the case of individuals wishing to make projects that interface a little better than the methods available now. Neal Greenburg(VP in sales) replied that they had been kicking ideas around like what I was proposing for a while, and that he would like to get some feedback. So, if you're interested, head on over and pipe in. The basic request I made was asking for common internal pc interfaces(PCI, PCI-e, AGP, ISA, etc..) to be included as an attachable module.

The reason for my request was that this would allow organizations such as this one to develop hardware that is now unachievable at a decent prototyping price(quantities in the single digits). Their modules allow robust SMD hardware to be hand soldered and connected to other modules, but interfacing to a pc or other system is limited to rs232. I left a much more in depth post there, and if you're interested, you can find it there.

I'm not affiliated with schmartboard in any other way than as a customer. I'm sorry if this is seen as spam, it's not intended to be. If the general consensus is that this is spam, feel free to delete it.

open source machine

Is there some other wiki somewhere that would be better for discussing "open source hardware designs" for non-electronic mechanical hardware, such as
http://opensourcemachine.org/
?
--DavidCary 05:52, 26 June 2008 (PDT)